For paediatric patients with serious head injuries, appropriate and timely airway management is critical for improved survival and outcomes. Yet managing a child's airway can be challenging in both the pre-hospital and hospital setting, in part because many providers lack experience with paediatric patients — only about 10 percent of emergency calls involve kids and of those, just 1 percent are serious injuries. A child's smaller size and the anatomical differences between children and adults also make managing the airway more difficult.

In this AHHB exclusive, Professor of Law at the University of Wollongong unpacks the issues facing an Australia with an increasingly ageing population. The number of people aged 65 or older has more than tripled over the last fifty years and was 3.4 million in 2014, while the number of people aged 85 and over increased nine fold to 456,600. The Australian Bureau of Statistics predicts that there will be 9.6 million people aged 65 and over and 1.9 million people aged 85 and over by 2064. [ + ]

The Royal Australasian College of Medical Administrators (RACMA) would like to thank colleagues, sponsors and exhibitors for being part of the 2016 conference that was held in Brisbane. Over 300 delegates – the highest number ever – came together to participate in an event that showcased a program full of high-calibre international and Australian speakers who focused on the theme Harm Free Health Care. [ + ]

Healthcare providers are unknowingly pouring funds down the drain – and that’s because they can’t keep track of all the spillage. That’s where analytics plugs the gaps. [ + ]

In this article, Professor Nick Santamaria highlights the need for clinicians and managers to always base their decisions about pressure injury prevention strategies on sound scientific and clinical evidence. [ + ]

As we get older, we all want to remain in our home where life is familiar, comfortable and we are close to our memories. To remain in our home, we need to remain healthy, which includes eating well. But this isn’t always as easy as it sounds. To really enjoy a meal and maximise nutrition, we need to have a positive meal experience. [ + ]

Our gut does more than help us digest food; the bacteria that call our intestines home have been implicated in everything from our mental health and sleep, to weight gain and cravings for certain foods. This series examines how far the science has come and whether there’s anything we can do to improve the health of our gut. Margaret Morris, UNSW Australia and Jessica Beilharz, UNSW Australia [ + ]

'While a PSA test is not dangerous in itself in any way, it is definitely not foolproof,' writes Ben Stiller in his blog published on Cancer Moonshot. 'The criticism of the test is that depending on how they interpret the data, doctors can send patients for further tests like the MRI and the more invasive biopsy, when not needed.' [ + ]

The odds of getting a Clostridium difficile infection in hospital are higher if a patient is in a bed previously occupied by someone who received antibiotics, according to a US study examining more than 100,000 patients. [ + ]

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The National Hand Hygiene Initiative (NHHI) is a culture change program to reduce the rate healthcare associated infections in Australia. [ + ]

The addition of PD-1 antibody pembrolizumab to standard first-line chemotherapy for treatment-naïve advanced non-small-cell lung cancer significantly improves response rates and progression-free survival, researchers reported at the ESMO 2016 Congress in Copenhagen. [ + ]

New research has taken us a step closer to finding a cure for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), as well as other infections including the glandular fever virus, which is associated with the development of lymphoma. Some infections, such as HIV, cannot be cured with antiviral therapy because the virus effectively hides from the immune system. [ + ]

In the lead up to the Institute of Hospitality in HealthCare conference, 17-19 October, John Kirwan reflects on almost 40 years’ experience in the healthcare industry. He urges us to look closely at the potential of working with the broader health community and organisations outside health to ensure food security and address the rise in co-morbidity. [ + ]

Surgical heart reconstructions using graft materials can do amazing things for patients, but in young children they have a serious limitation. The grafts don’t grow along with a growing heart, and so for procedures such as right ventricular outflow tract reconstructions repeat surgeries are required. Now researchers at University of Minnesota are reporting in journal Nature Communications on newly developed “off-the-shelf” vascular grafts that can grow as the tissue they’re connecting develops and matures. [ + ]